(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
THE SHOCKING KILLINGS of school children in Littleton, Colorado, has once
more illustrated Hegel's view that tragedy is often followed by farce.

Immediately after the shootings, loudmouth talk show hosts and demagogic
politicians have leaped front and center, proclaiming a need for more gun
control.

Where do the gun controllers think the 200 million guns in this country are
going to go if they pass more gun control laws? Will these vast numbers of
firearms simply vanish into thin air somehow? Will criminals line up at
police stations to turn in the tools of their trade?

Or does it matter what will actually happen? Is it enough for the gun
controllers that they will have "made a statement" and taken a stand on the
side of the angels -- regardless of what the consequences might be?

The most likely consequence of stronger gun control laws is the same as the
consequences of international disarmament agreements in the 1920s and 1930s:
Those who are no threat to anybody will be disarmed, shifting the balance of
power in favor of those who remain armed and dangerous. It took a Second
World War for us to learn that lesson internationally, but we have yet to
learn it domestically -- or even to consider it as a possibility.

There is no excuse for the widespread ignorance and demagoguery on gun
control that hold sway in politics and the media, after a massive study by
John Lott of the University of Chicago has shown convincingly that armed
citizens deter violent criminals. His study, "More Guns, Less Crime," shows
that an increase in licensed gun ownership is almost invariably followed
immediately by a decline in violent crime in the county where these
licensing laws have been relaxed.

When an airplane crashes, costing hundreds of lives, does anyone suggest
banning planes? When thousands die in automobile accidents, does anyone
suggest banning cars? But let a fraction as many people die from guns and
shrill cries for banning guns ring out across the land.

No one asks about how many lives have been saved by guns in the hands of
law-abiding citizens defending themselves and their families against the
violent criminals that liberal gun controllers allow to walk the streets.

Lott's study is one of the few that even addresses that question.

The very phrase "gun control" is a farce. Laws controlling guns have been
on the books for years. The only meaningful question is whether those laws
are to be tightened and how. What the so-called gun control advocates want
is a sweeping ban on the legal possession of guns by law-abiding citizens.

Typical of the demagoguery on this issue is the phrase "assault weapons" --
a term that nobody has been able to define legally with any precision.

Instead, ugly-looking weapons have been banned by name, while equally deadly
weapons that don't look so bad are still sold.

All weapons are for assault. That is what makes them weapons, whether they
are guns, bows and arrows or boomerangs. Because they are capable of
assault, they are also capable of deterring assault, usually just by being
pointed at a potential assailant. They are a lot better for protection than
phoning 911 and waiting for the police to arrive after the crime has been
committed and the criminal is long gone.

In short, guns save lives and guns take lives. If we are serious, then we
can talk about how many lives are involved each way and what can we do to
continue to deter violent criminals, while reducing the deaths caused by
accidents or crime.

If the media were serious, then they would want to talk about the facts on
both sides, instead of talking in terms of a political contest between the
National Rifle Association and supporters of gun control laws. After all,
there are a quarter of a billion Americans who do not belong to either the
NRA or the anti-gun lobby. It is these ordinary citizens' interests that
matter most.

The most tragic farce of all is that we continue to listen gullibly to
shrinks who are spouting off, all across the media, on why the school
shootings took place. But this is not the first school shooting where the
young killers were given a clean bill of health by shrinks before they
started slaughtering their classmates.

Why are shrinks so wise after the fact and so wrong beforehand? And why do
we keep taking them
seriously?